Friday, September 23, 2011

University of Alabama Football Report for 9/23/2011

Well, you know, I don't get any hot dog at halftime. I don't. I don't even drink a Coke. I coach the team at halftime. You get your little halftime break, and then you have your little ass back in your seat ready to go when the next half starts.
--Nick Saban from his radio show, 9/22/2011

Corporate beverage sponsors and hard-working concessions vendors aside, not many people will take issue with the Great Leader’s public chastising of the faithful this week. After all, it’s a conference game; there is no upper limit to the correction we will endure should it bring the team closer to victory.

With freshmen tackles, a new quarterback, and without their best defensive player, Arkansas is not quite the SEC opener that it has been in years past. Vegas has the Hawgs as double-digit dawgs, but the neon bookkeepers are always overly optimistic for our hometown team. Still, although this will be a truer measure of where Arkansas might stand in the conference than Alabama, it is still a game that could slip away if the Tide isn't careful. A Petrino with nothing to lose is one who might most likely win.

Good thing the fans will be skipping the halftime nachos this week.

And with the start of conference play, now is as good a time as any to speak of the realignment brouhaha occurring, both east and west. Specifically, Texas A&M looks to replace Arkansas as the most geographically far-flung member of the SEC (we don't call it Fayette-nam for nothing) and the presumed fourteenth member remains unknown. We are formerly Twelvers and now we await our new imam to be revealed.

This move west has been in the rumor mill for well over a year now, with damn near every chess piece floated over each square twice. However it turns out in the end, rest assured, it won't be the end.

It wasn't for the Southwest Conference. It wasn't for the Big 8. It wasn't for the Pac-10 to 12 or the Big Can't Count. It won't be for the SEC.

Whatever becomes of college football in the future, just remember one thing: get your little ass back in your seat and cheer.